Volume 5 Issue 6

ANARCHY - Absence of government; disbelief in, and disregard of, invasion and authority based on coercion and force; a condition of society regulated by voluntary agreement instead of government.

OBSERVATIONS AND COMMENTS

The anti-clerical movement in Spain sounds like an echo from the eighteenth century. It sharply accentuates the spiritual darkness still supreme in that priest-ridden country.

If social justice and liberty be the test of civilization, no nation can be said to be truly civilized. But humanity is gradually advancing toward the ultimate goal. In that progress there are degrees, but Spain has unfortunately remained far behind in the forward march. All but the most backward nations have long since passed the milestone of religious toleration, at least theoretically. But Spain is even now in the throes of a struggle, the extreme of which does not exceed the demand that non-Cathoic religions my be publicly practiced, and that religious orders shall be taxed and subject to the secular power, similar to other societies.

The separation of Church and State in Spain may still belong to the future. But ultimately it must come. And when it does, the result will be due to the leaven now at work in that country - the leaven, the original germs of which have been planted by the noble band of men whose devotion and high purpose were so brilliantly typified by the martyred Francisco Ferrer.

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LEST the foul murder of Francisco Ferrer be forgotten, we call our readers' attention to the international demonstration to take place October 13, 1910. On that day the liberty-loving world will commemorate the first anniversary of the black deed committed by the power of darkness which is now facing its ultimate extinction in Spain and Portugal.

The American Ferrer Association, whose headquarters are in New York, will hold a commemoration meeting in Cooper Union, October 13. It is urging upon all sympathizers with Ferrer and his work to arrange similar meetings all over the country - on the same date, if possible. The Association is also preparing a Ferrer memorial issue, which will contain valuable documents and articles on the life and work of our martyred comrade.

All those willing to aid in the work, or desiring to order in advance copies of the memorial, should communicate with the Secretary of the Association, Mr. Van der Weyde, 241 Fifth avenue, New York.

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THE puerility and blindness of the American Federation of Labor pass all comprehension. That "powerful" organization calmly continues claiming victories for labor in the face of constantly growing oppression, sweeping injunctions, and almost uniform defeat in strikes.

For almost two decades the Federation has practiced the principles of craft unionism, with its resultant internal divisions and external policy of vacillation, compromise, and servility. The net result of twenty years of such "struggle" is evidenced by the Draconian injunction of Judge Richardson, of the Superior Court of Boston, Mass. The injunction is the most vicious assault that organized labor has had to sustain from the courts. Not only does it prohibit the Photo Engravers' Union from conducting a strike against a certain Boston firm, but it also formulates general rules as to when the workers may or may not strike. It further paves the way for an almost total prohibition of union support to striking members, even when the latter are engaged in a "lawful" strike.

Thus the chains of slavery are continually tightening around American labor. Are the fetters not yet sufficiently galling to open the workmen's eyes to the futility of conservative methods and craft disorganization? to convince them that the old methods of fighting exploitation have resulted in failure and defeat, and that only a united industrial army, determined and revolutionary, can hope to wage a successful war for economic independence?

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THE death of James W. Van Cleave, president of the Bucks Stove & Range Company, no doubt afforded that concern a much-desired opportunity to recede from its former position of fighting organized labor.

Van Cleave, incidentally also president of the National Association of Manufacturers, was the bitterest foe of unions. He was a strong man, but hopelessly near-sighted as a captain of industry. His successor, the new president of the Bucks Company, sees much further. He knows that an apparently friendly attitude towards labor organizations is far more conducive to successful exploitation than open enmity. Accordingly, he hastened to enter into an agreement with the American Federation of Labor, unionizing the Bucks Stove & Range Company.

Claiming the changed attitude of the company as a victory for labor, Secretary Morrison, of the A. F. of L., evidently failed to realize the true significance of his explanation. The agreement, Mr. Morrison says, is a manifestation of the steady growth of sentiment among employers in favor of the principles for which the A. F. of L. stands. Such agreements are satisfactory to employers, promote peace of mind among employees, and are conducive to good workmanship.

Quite true. And as long as "to be satisfactory to employers" is the ideal of the Gompers-Morrison organization, capitalism has nothing to fear in its stronghold. Indeed, it can afford to co-operate on the friendliest terms with Messr. Gompers, Morrison, et al.

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WHETHER West or East, North or South, the local and State authorities rush to the aid of the employers, strikers are clubbed and shot down, and "law and order" vindicated.

The proverbial peace of Warsaw reigns in the strike regions. In Columbus, Ohio, the troops help to run the street cars; in Brooklyn, N.Y., the police protect the interests of the Sugar Trust. At both places the good fathers of the Church advise the strikers to return to work, to be quiet and patient, though their wives and children starve to death.

It is remarkable what an amount of gratuitous advice labor receives. But still more remarkable is the fact that the generous advice, from whatever source, always sounds the same note : Be patient, keep quiet. Even our step-brothers, the Socialists, join the chorus, in no uncertain voice.

Unfortunately, the wage slave generally follows this advice - with evident results. Exploitation grows more intense, poverty constantly increases, the spirit of manly resistance is paralyzed. Some day the toilers may awaken to this all-too-evident fact. They will then realize that salvation from the terrible economic hell lies not in servile submission to robbery and extortion, but in organized, determined resistance with every weapon at hand.

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THE New York Socialists are jubilant over the official approval of Mayor Gaynor who has declared them the most law-abiding citizens in the community. It only remains now to secure the O.K. of Taft to make the triumph of Socialism complete.

The first fruits of that triumph have already revolutionized the Socialist-ruled city of Milwaukee. Indeed, the change is so tremendous as to astonish even the much-experienced Victor Berger himself. He thus analyzes the situation in his Social Democratic Herald:

We have been in power now for almost three months. Now, what have we done for the working class as such? What measures have we passed and carried out that are of interest to the city collectively?

Let's see. We have abolished the three-headed board of public works and have put in a one-man commissioner. A good measure if our man makes good-but not a Socialist measure in itself.

We have passed an ordinance establishing the cost unit system. Also a very good thing and of great interest to the city collectively. But as yet we could not secure the right man to take the job, so this can hardly be called an accomplishment now.

We have introduced a number of ordinances to compel the street car company to give efficient and decent service. But so far there has been very little accomplished in that respect. The street car service is as irregular and insufficient as ever. The indecent overcrowding of cars is still going on.

It is much too early to pride ourselves on our success in Milwaukee. Only one thing is certain.

The most dangerous part of the situation is that some of our comrades seem to forget that we are a Socialist party. They not only begin to imitate the ways and methods of old parties, but even their reasoning and their thoughts are getting to be more bourgeois and less proletarian. To some of these men the hold of office - whatever they office may be - seems to be the final aim of the Socialist party. And even some of the aldermen seem to have lost their Socialist class consciousness - if they ever had any. Instead of that they seem to make it a point "to be agreeable" to the old party politicians. Their kindness extends even to the memory of the old capitalist and grafters' regime.

Socialism may indeed be proud of its Milwaukee achievements "in the interest of the collectivity and the working class as such."

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WITHIN the past three years over four thousand men have deserted from the United States army. Evidently the soldier's lot in the land of the free is not as alluring as Uncle Sam tries to make it appear in his broadcast advertisements for recruits.

The government has been deeply considering the question of desertion. At last it has solved the perplexing problem : more circulars should be sent out, containing accurate description of the deserters and offering a reward for their capture. All apprehended deserters should be punished with the utmost rigor.

It could not be expected, of course, that the government should stoop to a consideration of the causes leading to desertion. The brutal treatment, underfeeding and underpaying - these are matters beneath the government's notice. Indeed, a "strong" government should rather consider the advisability of conscription. It holds out a rich promise for a "great power." Other monarchies have it, why not America?

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JOHN KENNETH TURNER'S articles on "Barbarous Mexico," now running in the Appeal to Reason, are of the first importance to all revolutionists and should be studied carefully. Turner proves that the United States has, to all intents and purposes, annexed Mexico, the investment of $900,000,000 by American capitalists being the real governing power, and Diaz a mere tool of Washington.

He also shows that the leading monopolists of the United States - The Guggenheims, Standard Oil, etc., have seized the natural resources of Mexico, gained control of her railroads, and made themselves her masters. To do this they have not hesitated to bring about such tragedies as that of the war in which the Yaquis were decimated and driven into the most atrocious chattel slavery, American capitalists having bought their lands through connivance with Diaz and other American officials.

Furthermore, he proves conclusively that at this moment American capitalists are engaged in buying and selling Mexican slaves, just as the Southerners bought and sold them before the civil war. Thus the people of this country face the fact that their war was fought in vain, and that their government is today conniving actively in the perpetration of the very crime they shed oceans of blood to make impossible.

The work Turner is doing will prove infinitely more potent than the capture of Milwaukee or three academic harangues of "Scientific Socialism" that have plagued our ears so long. It is putting putrid facts under the public's nose - facts so putrid that their stench cannot be stifled. For Turner shows us the pirates in the saddle ; a country raped in the name of business ; the most brutal form of chattel slavery again in vogue, and Americans active in the traffic.

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SOME friends of Mother Earth, with a peculiar lack of the sense of proportion, have been led astray by the account of the lecture tour, contained in the last issue.

Thus one correspondent writes: "I am so glad you have succeeded in placing the magazine on a safe financial basis." Another informs us that he "rejoices to learn that Mother Earth is out of financial difficulties." A third sends congratulations on "having made the magazine self-supporting," and so forth.

Evidently our good correspondents are not the only ones who have gathered such an altogether exaggerated notion from the report. At any rate, our subscribers seem to have forgotten to remit during the last month, and as to our generous contributors - they apparently do not feel "called," since "prosperity has overtaken" our publication.

For more the benefit of all concerned, we will state that, considering the expenses of a magazine, the surplus of five hundred dollars is barely sufficient to tide Mother Earth over the few summer months. As to having the magazine on a safe material basis, or out of financial difficulties, - that is out of the question, at least until the social revolution arrives. We therefore very gently call the attention of our readers to the eternal struggle for existence of a magazine like Mother Earth.

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A SONG OF ACADEMIC LIBERTY

By Ida Ahlborn Weeks.

Arise, who bend o'er song and story,
Who search for truth in her retreat;
What profits all your learned glory
If freedom suffer a defeat?
Arise and listen! Down the ages
The shackles on the thinker ring;
And what ye read on placid pages
Was once condemned by priest and king.

O ye who guard the sacred portals
With vigilance of heart and brain,
Through which the troop of the immortals
Comes ever with their glistering train -
O thinker, teacher, seer, bestowing
Such guardian service, shall ye be
The slaves of tyrants, all unknowing
The highest gifts are from the free?

Shall ye not see a Hamlet's passion
Portrayed upon the tragic stage?
Must truth be right to you in fashion
When it is duly stamped with age?
Shall ye not dare condemn the writer
Who writes from vanity and greed?
And dare to be the public smiter
Of men who mount by evil deed?

Of old did Galileo mutter
As he recanted, "yet it moves"? -
Ye, too, below your breath must utter
What blinded custom disapproves.
O ye, for truth who groan in travail,
Shall ye be driven to obey
The barren slaves who basely cavil
At life and life's imperious way?

For you no sword that cleaves asunder,
And not for you the piercing ball;
But Eloquence has still her thunder, -
The people are the open hall.
The law that underlies our nation
Is still to tyranny a foe;
And to your help comes all creation
When once ye are in freedoms's throe.

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MARX VS. NIETZSCHE
A REVIEW OF "MEN VS. THE MAN"
By Wm. C. Owen.

EVERYONE has heard of the man who apologized for the length of his letter with the plea that he had had no time to make it shorter.This has been my own experience with this correspondence between R. R. La Monte and H. L. Mencken, published under the title of "men vs. The man, " by Henry Hold & Co., New York. Mr. La Monte announces himself on the first page as a "faithful follower" of Karl Marx, and is therefore, to me at least, a Socialist of the authoritarian type. Mr. Mencken, on the other hand, is a noted interpreter of Nietzsche, from the "Redbeard" standpoint; that is to say , he is an individualist who believes that, by the basic law of nature, to the victor belong the spoils. Obviously the two men have nothing whatever in common save mutual discontent, yet their debate rips open the whole social question.

It was easy to make voluminous notes and mark paragraphs, on each of which an essay could be written. But to squeeze the discussion into a single article was a problem. However, since La Monte relies manly on Marxian economics and Mencken on biology, I found my criticism falling naturally into two sections, the first of which deals with La Monte's Socialist view.

As an orthodox Socialist La Monte proclaims that the advent of a new order is inevitable and gives reasons for his faith. First, society is organized today on lines that differ essentially from all antecedent forms, production being not for use but profit. Interrupt sale, and panic ensues. Secondly, panics are due to the diminished purchasing power of the workers, whose wages enable them to buy back only a portion of what their labor produces, thus leaving the market glutted. Thirdly, this condition makes a revolution inevitable, and we shall have a choice only between placing in power "an oligarchy of Nietzschean Immoralists" or making "the means of life the common property of all," so abolishing poverty forever. Fourthly, we shall choose the latter alternative because the factory system is drilling us out of individualism and into collectivism. Fifthly, the revolution will be facilitated unspeakably by the automatic extinction of the middle class, as to which he makes this prophesy: "Within a decade, as a social force or factor, they will be negligible."

The foregoing is a full synopsis of La Monte's position, which is the orthodox Socialist position. For my part, I hold that each of the five statements is erroneous, and I shall examine them in detail.

(1) It is the universal Socialist catchword that modern production is for profit. But, unfortunately, for the argument, production always has been for profit. Man is instinctively a trader, and it has been pointed out repeatedly that his fact differentiates him most clearly from the other animals, who look only to the satisfaction of their own individual needs. The real distinction, as I see it, between society today and that of a hundred years ago is not that we produce for profit, but that we produce for profit on a vastly larger scale, improved means of communication having made the world our market. It is a difference of degree and not of kind, and I submit that the trouble is not profit, but the diversion of profit to those who have not earned it - a diversion due to the inequalities begotten by monopoly.

(2) In the dictum that panics come from decrease of purchasing power there appears to me to lurk an appalling confusion of thought. If I, a publisher, cut in half the wages previously paid by me to La Monte, a writer, La Monte will have simply less while I shall have more to spend. The book market will not be glutted, all that will happen being that the distribution of wealth will be changed, I becoming richer and La Monte poorer. Henceforth he will be able to make less demands on the labor market, but I shall make greater, and in each case the market will answer the demand by furnishing the required supply. Panics come, as the word implies, from loss of confidence, which may arise from various causes, among others from the glutting of the market by wild speculation or from ignorance of its actual demands. The latter has been a frequent cause of panics in the past, when little was known of the actual requirements of the market, and statistics, trade journals, etc., were still in their infancy. To-day, however, the gauging of the market's needs is becoming one of the exact sciences. Our last panic, that of 1907, came at a time when factories were rushed with orders, and was a monopoly-manufactured panic, underconsumption having nothing to do with it. Surplus value, or - to use a term I prefer - unearned increment , has simply the effect of distributing wealth inequitably, but wealth may be distributed with utter inequity, as it has been for ages, without any glutting of the market. Between surplus value and panics there is, in my opinion, no connection, and the Socialist philosophy on that head seems to me false and one that leads to deplorable conclusions, making them rely on expectations that are doomed to disappointment.

Thirdly, La Monte's dogmatic declaration that the inevitable can be must be either to a Nietzschean oligarchy or a collectivism of the Marxian type seems to me preposterous presumption. Single Taxers, for instance believe that with free land and the abolition of special privilege society will abolish poverty, competition becoming the purest form of social co-operation. The Individualist Anarchists of the Tucker school, who follow Proudhon, Josiah Warren, etc., believe, as do the Single Taxers, that the land must be freed, but consider that monopoly of the medium of exchange - money - also must be abolished. Both these groups, together with the Anarchist Communists, believe that, given equality of opportunity, society would arrange itself spontaneously along decentralized lines and not under centralized authority. There is a world of difference between these schools and that of Marx, and it seems to me supremely ridiculous on the part of Mr. La Monte to assert that there are only two possible alternatives. I myself consider that most radical changes will and must be made, but I would lay long odds that they will not be to any great extent along the lines of the present Socialist platform, and that the Socialist platform itself will change materially. Nothing ends as it began, metamorphosis being a universal law.

Fourthly : La Monte argues that the machine system is drilling us for such a centralized collectivism as Karl Marx visioned, and thereby rendering that the next imperative step in social evolution. To me this is one of those loose generalizations any one can make. You might argue similarly that congregation in cities makes us co-operators, whereas nowhere is life conducted in so narrowly selfish, cut-throat a fashion as in a great metropolis, where one may occupy a house for years without even knowing the name of one's next-door neighbor. I question seriously whether there was not more true co-operation among the handicraftsmen of the past, and among the villagers who toiled side by side in the fields before harvesters were invented. Consider how the French peasant, for example, to-day co-operates in the hiring of machinery. But, however this may be - and absolute proof is of necessity lacking - the factory system affects only a small proportion of the population. The enormous residue is receiving, as I submit, not a drilling for the Co-operative Commonwealth, but daily instruction in the individualistic need of looking after "Number One." If you are prophesying as to the future this point is of importance.

Fifthly: The middle class "is fast disappearing before the advance of the trust and the department store" and "within a decade, as a social force or factor, they will be negligible." Here La Monte indorses the leading dogma of his master - that the big swallows up the little capital, and that the bourgeoisie is destined to dig its own grave. This fatalistic philosophy, which has taken the backbone out of the Socialist movement for the last two generations, was, to my thinking, the profoundest error into which Karl Marx fell ; and he fell into it precisely because he was a dialectician, who reasoned from assumed premises, and not an inductive scientist who built on facts.For even when he wrote, the middle class in Germany was rising to power, and for the last fifty years in every country its growth has kept pace with the development of capitalism. Thus the United States, which is the most advanced of all capitalist countries, has the largest and most powerful middle class, whereas in Russia and Mexico, where capitalism is still in its infancy, the middle class is but now coming into being. Tcherkesoff, in his "Pages of Socialist History," has given the absolute proof of this as it applies to Europe, and I could more than duplicate it for this country did space permit. A single instance. The owner of an automobile does not belong to the proletariat. Here in Los Angeles, a city of some 325,000 inhabitants, there are 12,000 automobile owners, the number having increased one-third within the last twelve months. Only a humorist would see in this the impending bankruptcy of the middle class.

It appears to me that Marx, engrossed in his study of the capitalist as manufacturer and distributor of goods, lost sight of the far greater enterprises that engage his activities - activities in which combination, and not competition, plays the most important part. The very titles of the Trusts which dominate the modern field of industry - such as oil trust, lumber trust, coal trust, copper trust, railroad trust, etc. - should suggest to us that in the seizure of natural resources capitalism has dealt the masses its deadliest blow. And in this great robbery combination, and not competition, has been the weapon. Companies without number are formed to exploit this and that form of natural wealth, and invariably the first aim of the promoters is to "interest money" - to combine. It has not been a question of the big capitalistic fish eating up the little capitalistic fish, but of the capitalists, as a species, making a terrific onslaught on the proletariat spawn.

Moreover, in answer to the claim that all wealth is centering in a few hands, Kropotkin - a hated Anarchist, of course, but somewhat of a scientist - has shown in "Fields, Factories, and Workshops" that decentralization has been a most marked feature of recent industrial development. A century ago England was the workshop of the world. To-day each country is doing its own manufacturing, even China having joined the procession.On this Pacific coast thirty years ago San Francisco was the distributing center from Arizona to British Columbia. To-day she has a hundred rivals in towns that have become manufacturing and jobbing centers. I may add that in "Anarchy vs. Socialism" I have given my reasons for thinking we are on the eve of an infinitely vaster decentralization movement.

La Monte says: "If one fact stands out above another in modern financial history it is that stock companies are the most efficient means ever devised to transfer the savings of the middle and working classes to the pockets of the lords of finance." La Monte, the middle class is composed mainly of business men. They know what is to their own interest, believe me, far better than you, a literary person, do; and they would not run more and more to the formation of joint stock companies if it was their experience that they lost money by so doing. The fact is that the invention of joint stock companies has rendered capital infinitely more fluid, and has given moneyed men, of all grades, far greater opportunities of combining their means for the exploitation of the workers than they previously enjoyed. It is one of the great causes of the increase of the middle class and the impoverishment of the workingman, for it has led directly to the bringing of natural opportunities under corporate control on a scale impossible to individual effort.

I have now dealt with La Monte's five central positions, and it is needless to say that they are the five central positions of the orthodox Socialist movement in which he is an active worker. I submit that I have shown good reasons for holding that each of those positions is false - most tragically false - and if they are false the matter is no light one. For, while the Socialist movement will continue to grow throughout the world, thanks to certain vitally true instincts that inspire it, this false philosophy is imposing on us a spurious Socialism which may pick us out of the frying pan of one slavery only to land us in the hotter fire of another. This is what Herbert Spencer, Renan, Tolstoy and many other thinkers have feared, and their fears are not to be dismissed, at the behest of mere rhetoricians, without examination. At any rate, all errors will retard the progress of the movement, making the transition to the new order slower and more painful.

This criticism grows too long, but I wish to give an illustration of the looseness of speech in which leading Socialist lights have indulged - a looseness that always means inexact thought. La Monte quotes with approval the following from Ferdinand Lasalle : "Its (the working class') interest is in truth the interest of the whole of humanity, its freedom is the freedom of humanity itself, and its domination is the domination of all." I remark that freedom and domination are incompatible terms, the one being contradiction of the other. It is precisely the domination of the working class, operating through the tyranny of the majority, that we, passionately attached to freedom, regard with such apprehension. But on this head Menchen is eloquent, and it is time to turn to him.

Meanwhile, since I have criticised La Monte freely, I wish to quote one sentence from him of which I approve most heartily. In his third letter he says : "What vast wealth in practice consists of are (sic) certain legal papers that give their holders the power to compel other men to work for them." Correct, eternally correct. But cannot that monstrous iniquity be abolished without the erection of the clumsy structure Marxian Socialism sketches?

(To be continued.)

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NOTE

About October 15th I intend starting on a lecture tour which will extend as far as Chicago, or perhaps farther west. Organizations and Comrades wishing to arrange lectures should kindly communicate with me at once.
VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE
531 N. Marshall Street
Philadelphia, Pa.

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ANARCHIST SYMPOSIUM
Emerson

NOTHING is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declaration of Independence, or the statutory right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or act.

Is not the State a question? All society is divided in opinion on the subject of the State. Nobody loves it, great numbers dislike it, and suffer conscientious scruples to allegiance ; and the only defense set up, is the fear of doing worse in disorganizing.

We live in a very low state of the world, and pay unwilling tribute to governments founded on force. There is not, among the most religious and instructed men of the most religious and civil nations, a reliance on the moral sentiment, and a sufficient belief in the unity of things, to persuade them that society can be maintained without artificial restraints as well as the solar system ; or that the private citizen might be reasonable and a good neighbor, without the hint of a jail or a confiscation. What is strange, too, there never was in any man sufficient faith in the power of rectitude to inspire him with the broad design of renovating the State on the principle of right and love. All those who have pretended this design have been partial reformers, and have admitted in some manner the supremacy of the State. I do not call to mind a single human being who has steadily denied the authority of the laws, on the simple ground of his own moral nature. Such designs, full of genius and full of fate as they are, are not entertained except avowedly as air-pictures. If the individual who exhibits them dares to think them practicable, he disgusts scholars and churchmen ; and men of talent and women of superior sentiment cannot hide their contempt. Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with suggestions of this enthusiasm, and there are now men - if indeed I can speak in the plural number - more exactly I will say, I have just been conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it for one moment appear impossible that thousands of human beings might exercise towards each other the grandest and simplest sentiments as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word "politic," which now for ages has signified cunning, intimating that the State is a trick.

This undertaking for another is the blunder which stands in colossal ugliness in the governments of the world. It is the same thing in numbers as in a pair, only not so intelligible. I can see well enough a great difference between my setting myself down to a self-control, and my going to make somebody else act after my views; but when a quarter of the human race assumes to tell me what I must do, I may be too much disturbed by the circumstances to see so clearly the absurdity of their command. Therefore all public ends look vague and quixotic besides private ones. For any laws but those which men can make for themselves are laughable.

This is the history of governments - one man does something which is to bind another. A man who cannot be acquainted with me taxes me; looking from afar at me, ordains that a part of my labor shall go to this or that whimsical end, not as I, but as he happens to fancy. Behold the consequence. Of all debts, men are least willing to pay the taxes. What a satire is this on government! Everywhere they think they get their money's worth, except for these. We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the influence of character is in its infancy. As a political power, as the rightful lord who is to tumble all rules from their chairs, its presence is hardly yet suspected. The tendency of the times favors the idea of self-government, and leave the individual for all code, to the rewards and penalties of his own constitution which work with more energy than we believe, while we depend upon artificial restraints. We must not imagine that all things are lapsing into confusion, if every tender protestant be not compelled to bear his part in certain social conventions, nor doubt that roads can be built, letters carried, and the fruit of labor secured, when the government of force is at an end.

Are our methods now so excellent that all competition is hopeless? Could not a nation of friends even devise better ways? On the other hand, let not the most conservative and timid fear anything from a premature surrender of the bayonet, and the system of force. For according to the order of nature which is quite superior to our will, it stands thus: there will always be a government of force where men are selfish ; and when they are pure enough to abjure the code of force, they will be wise enough to see how these public ends of the post office, of the highways, of commerce, and the exchange of property, of museums and libraries, of institutions of art and science, can be answered.

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AN IMMORAL WRITERBy Hippolyte Havel.

GENIUS without end has been discovered of late by our critics and art connoisseurs, and quickly transplanted to our shores. True, it takes several decades for our discoverers to find really great talent. Still, what can one expect : all good things require time. A work of art must first be stamped with the approval of European connoisseurs before it can hope to receive tardy artistic appreciation and commercial value in America. We are modest - the rehashed fully satisfies us. Was not Frank Wedekind discovered for us but lately, and - wonderful to say - Przybyszewski, the German-Polish genius, now also celebrates here his resurrection. The good Stanislaus would certainly never have dreamed of it. After he had given up German as the vehicle of his artistic expression and passed through repeated accouchements in Polish, his original German offsprings are suddenly discovered by our critics and translated into English. If our discoveries continue at the same rate, the American public may within a decade or two become acquainted with a truly great artist, one whose works are being read and passionately discussed in Russia, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan - M. Artzibashev.

At present, however, there is slender hope of such a contingency. Do not our successful translators consider Artzibashev immoral? As patriotism is the last resort of the scoundrel, so the final argument of the impotent critic against a disliked author is an appeal to morality. He is conclusively annihilated by such critics with the charge of demoralizing the youth, and is damned vicious. No eminent artist ever escaped this charge ; it would almost seem as if it were the ultimate crown of genius.

But Artzibashev is not an ordinary sinner. He is not merely a demoralizer of youth, morally; nay, even worse : he is the enemy of governmentally ordered life ; in fact, an Anarchist. This the partisans of State find impossible to forgive him.

Next to Andreiev and Gorki, Artzibashev is the most prominent personality in modern Russian literature. Since the appearance of his novel "Sanin," he must be classed with those whose names are inseparably connected with the annals of their time. In the history of Russian literature "Sanin" will find its deserved place among masterpieces, of Gogol Gontcharov, Dostoyevski, Turgeniev, and Tolstoy. Its socio-historical significance cannot be doubted. Intellectual Europe is agreed upon it.

* * *

M. Artzibashev was born in 1878 in a small city of Southern Russia. By descent he is aTartar, yet with a considerable mixture of other blood ; his great-grandfather on the maternal side was no less a man than Kosciusko, the famous Polish patriot. His father was a small landowner, living in straightened circumstances. His mother died when he was but three years old, bequeathing to him tuberculosis as his sole inheritance. After a course in a provincial gymnasium, Artzibashev, at the age of sixteen, entered an art school. Like Goethe, he was enthused with art, believing to possess the talent of a painter. He fared badly : he lived in squalid quarters, often suffering hunger ; but worse than all , he even lacked money for colors. To earn a living he drew caricatures and wrote sketches for obscure papers. Some of his writings, especially "Pasha Tumanov" - dealing with the then suicide epidemic among the college youth - attracted the attention of Miroliubov, the publisher of a magazine of liberal tendencies. Among the collaborators on the latter were Maxim Gorki, Leonid Andreiev, A. Kuprin, and other modern writers. Miroliubov, recognizing the talent of young Artzibashev, offered him to join the editorial staff and thus paved the way for his future literary career.

It was during this period, seven years ago, that Artzibashev wrote his famous work, "Sanin." The manuscript was declined by several publishers, who feared to offend against the censorship. The revolution came. The emotional life of the people underwent a tremendous change. All classes manifested a ravenous hunger for literature. The editors of "Sovremenni Mir," which had previously declined "Sanin," now remembered the work and hastened to publish it.

This circumstance is not generally known. The public was led to believe by the Russian critics that "Sanin" was the product of reaction, and that Artzibashev followed the modernist tendencies of the decadent school, manifesting themselves in Russian literature with the downfall of the Revolution. In reality, however, the "Sanin" manuscript had already been perused by prominent writers in 1903, two years before the great upheaval.

Following "Sanin," Artzibashev wrote a collection of splendid sketches, among them "Millions" and "The Death of Ivan Lande." The latter assured his fame in Russian letters. Various works, written during this period by Artzibashev for propaganda purposes, came under the ban of the censor, and only the timely success of the Revolution saved the author from prison.

Artzibashev is now living in Crimea, undergoing - according to a letter to his translator - treatment for consumption, "without special hop of cure."

* * *

"Sanin" has caused an almost unprecedented division in the ranks of intellectual Russia. Its effect can be compared only with that produced by such works as "Yevgeni Oniegin," "Fathers and Sons," "What's To Be Done," and "Kreutzer Sonata." Even if its purely artistic qualities had not stamped "Sanin" as one of the most important literary events, socio-historic reasons would have impressed upon the work lasting significance. Its social effects alone characterize "Sanin" above the class of merely literary effort.

Similarly to Turgeniev's "Fathers and Songs," "Sanin" was understood neither by the reactionists nor revolutionists. At the same time that the government confiscated the romance, the revolutionists stigmatized ARtzibashev as the ally of the reaction. But most of all "Sanin" was misinterpreted by "the youngest youth." A wild sexual intoxication followed upon the publication of the book. The college youth formed themselves into associations for the unhindered practice of eroticism. They called themselves Saninists, claiming to live the vies of Artzibashev's hero.

These excesses are easily explained psychologically. The Revolution was suppressed ; the intellectuals withdrew ; the revolutionary parties became disintegrated. General weariness took the place of activity. But the stimulated energies would not be so easily stemmed : the wakened emotions demanded satisfaction. Such feelings dissolve themselves most readily in sexual passion. Because of its erotic suggestiveness, "Sanin" became the programme of the young generation. A misinterpretation, from which almost all extraordinary works have in their day suffered.

In his "Reminiscences" Goethe says in regard to "Werther's Leiden":

The influence of this book was so great and unusual because it appeared at exactly the right moment. As it requires but a small fuse to explode a tremendous mine, so the explosion which thereupon followed among the public was so strong because the young generation had already undermined itself, and the shock so terrific, because everyone, being filled with exaggerated demands, unsatisfied passions, and imaginary sufferings, was about to explode. the public cannot be expected to receive a spiritual work in a spiritual manner. In reality only the contents, the material, were considered; to it was added the old prejudice concerning the printed word : namely, that its purpose must be didactic. But true art has none : it neither praises nor condemns ; it merely presents the emotions and actions in their sequence, and thus it enlightens and teaches.

These splendid words apply precisely to "Sanin." Artzibashev wrote neither a defence nor a slander of the Russian youth. He pictured in Sanin a new type of Russian life, a type whose spirit lives in the strongest and most daring representatives of new Russia. Sanin is an individuality which has broken with all the views dominant in modern life, an individuality which has withdrawn from all political parties, however revolutionary, - a man who stands alone.

The book is an apotheosis of individualism. Were a classification attempted, Sanin would have to be characterized as a Stirnerian, an Individualist Anarchist. He represents the reaction against the old type of revolutionist, who did not consider his own individuality, and who devoted his whole life to the "cause," to the people. But Artzibashev did not content himself with portraying merely the ordinary, self-satisfied Stirnerian. In "The Workman Shevyriov," from the "Stories of the Revolution," he pictures the complement of Sanin in the active revolutionary Individualist.

Sanin and Shevyriov give a complete view of Artzibashev's social and political beliefs. Either total aloofness from the problems of the day, and the free development of one's individuality, - that is Sanin ; or Shevyriov's intense participation in the struggle with every fiber of his being, perishing in active resistance.

The post-revolutionary period, beginning with the October manifesto of 1905, followed within two years by the downfall of the great social expectations, serves as the background of the "Stories of the Revolution."

The original unity of the Revolution is broken, its tremendous energy paralyzed. In place of the great Socialist parties, side-tracked by parliamentarism, we find the actions of separate organizations of Anarchists and Maximialists, partly loosely connected with each other, but mostly operating independently. In their midst are the solitary figures, those who believe in nothing except themselves, and who, protesting by deed, perish.

In this milieu live the types described in the "Stories of the Revolution." They contain powerful characterizations of great psychologic depth. These stories are a part of Artzibashev's Weltanschauung. They are, as he himself states, the sermon of his dearest ideas, his political faith : Anarchism.

My development - Artzibashev writes in a short autobiography - has been strongly influenced by Tolstoy, although I have never shared his opinion regarding "resist not evil." He overwhelmed me only as an artist, and it has been difficult for me to free my style from his influence. Almost a similar role Dostoyevsky and partly Tchechov played in my life. Victor Huge and Goethe also stood before me. These five names are those of my teachers and literary masters. Much has been written about Nietzsche's influence on me. The assertion always seemed to me peculiar, for the simple reason that I am not familiar with Nietzsche. I am better acquainted with Max Stirner, whose views I share.

* * *

THE PARABLE OF THE BENEFACTOR
By Lillian Browne.

ONCE a village was stricken with famine and pestilence. The people were rotting with disease, and, indifferent to life, listlessly awaited Death's release. Yet, so persistent is Life, and so reluctant to resign his reign, he created an intolerable thirst and tormented even the weakest with hopeless desire.

By chance a stranger came to the village gates which with astonishment he beheld unguarded. He saw the ravages of disease and death and, although footsore and weary, turned back to a hillside where a clear, unpolluted stream shone sparkling in the sunlight. The earthen jar which he brought from the dried-up cistern was large and heavy. This he filled with cool, clean water and, bending his back, walked with careful haste back to the village.

Many times he traveled back and forth between the village gates and the hillside stream and often he tottered with weariness. And the people began to bless their benefactor and to say : "God has sent us a saint from Heaven in our hour of dire distress."

And some began to revive, and a few crawled to the spring

Back and forth the stranger went, until exhausted, he fell under his burden and the earthen jar broke into a thousand fragments where he stumbled to the ground.

And they who awaited his coming became fevered and impatient ; and they who crawled to the spring cursed the stranger, saying : "He was a wicked fellow. See, he wasted the water and broke the urn."

* * *

PICTURESQUE FEATURES OF THE GHETTO
THE ESTHETIC SIDE OF JEWTOWN
By Sadakichi Hartmann.

WHAT strange part of the city have we strayed to? Are we really in New York, at the beginning of the twentieth century, or have we suddenly been conveyed to some European town of the medieval times? The sight that greets our eye reminds us indeed of the various descriptions which we have read of Italian Ghettos and the Judengassen of Prague and Amsterdam.

Everywhere Hebrew faces and Hebrew signs, and the incessant chatter of "Yiddish," the queer jargon of the street, which all Jews, no matter of what nationality, use in their daily life of bargaining, surrounds us on all sides.

No mistake, we are in Jewtown. No other part of the city bears such an outlandish aspect and is so overcrowded in its thoroughfares. The traffic is so dense that it threatens to reach the neighboring districts and inundate all New York.

Hucksters' and peddlers' carts and wagons long the curb form two rows of booths in the streets, and along the houses, beneath old shreds of awnings are tow other rows, where the same perpetual marketing goes on. Marketing of a very peculiar order, for everything has to be ridiculously cheap to find a buyer. The push-car market in Hester and the adjoining side street is like an ambulating department store, which restricts itself to a lively trade in damaged goods. It is an avalanche of eatables (reported as "not entirely unwholesome" by the Health Department), queer staples emptied on counters improvised on ash barrels, cases torn asunder and barrels turned upside down, with their contents poured on the sidewalks ; bags of white and blue bed-tick and loaves of bread in the shape of giant crullers bursting out of them. And everywhere women, young and old alike, with odd shawls and head coverings, rummage with both hands in the displayed wares and jabber about the quality, which is never beyond suspicion, and the price, which, no matter how low, is still too high. How they haggle about the fraction of a cent, how anxiously they figure and pluck at each purchase, even if it is only a bit of frowsy soup green.

To the Gentile, the aristocratic uptowner, the scene is like a nightmare. It reminds him involuntarily of some cheap dining-room of vast dimensions, which being open night and day is still warm and greasy from the previous meal, its huge table cloth in the form of paving stones, covered with remnants and refuse. A restaurant, where the orders to clear away are never given, and where clean linen are unknown things.

And as a fitting background to this poverty and filth loom long rows of tenement houses, dusty bright walls with broken windows, shutters dangling on one hinge, and grimy fire escapes crowded with every sort of refuse. Each of these fire escapes is a rag shop in miniature. Bedding is being aired on the black railings. The family wash flutters gaily in the wind and forms a sort of canopy to that open-air lumber room. These are boxes which serve as impromptu ice-boxes, battered cook-pots and stewing pans used to make the Sabbath broth, faded rugs, heaps of rags, shapeless mattresses, on which two families may sleep at night, a lot of objects without a name that have ceased to have either color or form, all innumerable times washed by the rain, bleached in the sun, and again and again covered with the rising dust and dirt of the street.

Yes, life in Jewtown with its sunless backyards and dark alleyways, its damp cellars and ramshackle rooms, has at the first glance but little grace and few poetic charms. To the curious sightseer it appears doubly bold and materialistic. The pleasures are even scantier than its fare, as it needs must be with a community which has but one passion : that of thrift. The synagogues of Bayard street, where venerable-bearded men with quaint skull-caps and long skirted caftans worship as in the days of Israel, only add to the gloom.

Yet Jewtown, despite all its social shortcomings and hygienic disadvantages, has its esthetic side, which we, who know the Ghetto largely from Eliot's "Daniel Deronda" and Zangwill's "Children of the Ghetto," or from an accidental visit to Baxter or Ludlow streets, should not overlook.

The Hebrew quarter is undoubtedly the most picturesque part of New York City, i. e., the one which would lend itself most easily to esthetic interpretation. It overflows with suggestions. Its very dinginess and squalor render it interesting. For filth - as disagreeable as it is in actual contact - is the great harmonizer in the pictorial arts, the wizard who can render every scene and object - even the humblest one - picturesque. It generalizes each pictorial vision and takes out all discordant notes. Rembrandt realized this ; each of his genre pictures is a glorification of human squalor, taken by the quivering rays of the supernatural light. And Raffaelli, whose paintings look as if drawn with colored chalks and stained with mud, has become the modern champion of pictorial dirt. He has accomplished with his suburban scenes, almost too realistic in their filth and poverty-stricken atmosphere, a feat similar to Zola, who never tired of delineating the seemy side of Parisian life, and whose fertile pen has transformed many a heap of refuse into a heap of roses.

Look at Whistler's Thames etchings. They will show you that a modern dwelling, clean and comfortable, can never have the same pictorial fascination as a ramshackle structure in some waste logicality of the river frontage, the haunts of vagabondage and pauperism. Even an ordinary garbage dump with its heaps of shining tin cans, will convince us of the truth. It contains such a wealth of subtle values and warm color notes and varieties of texture, that it should send, not only painters but every person in search of the picturesque into ecstacies. The New York Ghetto is full of such pictorial incidents, and I know of no place with promises more artistic possibilities for out-of-door photography than this curious hive of human industry in the lower East-side.

The settings for a picture are ready at every moment of the day. They surround one on all sides. One never need to wish for a composition. The crowd takes care of that.

This is the true drama of life that is enacted here along the curbstones. Humorous and pathetic scenes follow each other in endless variety.

The army of peddlers, who have neither a stand nor a cart, but carry all their wares in a basket, or dangling over their shoulders, carelessly make their way through the hubbub of the crowd. How they ever get rid of their notions is a mystery. The competition is a most bitter one. They seem to move in brigades of half a dozen ore more, and if one of them is on the verge of making a bargain, the other will cut his price until nearly all profit is gone. The suspender peddler, one of the most characteristic figures of Jewtown, in particular never seems to make a sale. There are so many of them and their article is an absolute luxury, as for Jacob A. Riis so aptly remarks: "The pants of Jewtown hang down with a common accord, as if they had never known the support of suspenders."

Everybody seems to peddle one thing or another in these thoroughfares. Even the womenfolk engage in the precarious business, and every bargain is sure to form an interesting group. Some dispense their wares from old tubs and peach baskets, other perambulate whole dried goods stores in cast-off baby carriages. Space is at a premium in Jewtown. Almost every hallway, cellar, and alleyway has been turned into a shop. How picturesque are some of the second-hand stores and old clo' shops with their "pullers in," and above all else the antiquarian shops which are littered with brass and copper ware of every description. Nothing is so bad that it could not be turned to some use. Everywhere in the midst of overcrowded tenements, the same pushing, struggling, babbling, and shouting. No matter whether of Bulgarian, Roumanian, Russian, or Polish origin, they can all understand each other. Their gesticulations alone seem to be sufficient for that.

And through this ceaseless traffic and clamor now and then men, groaning under heavy burdens of unsown garments, stagger along the sidewalk and disappear in the dark hallway of some Ludlow street tenement. They represent the dark side of Jewtown which neither legislation nor charity can altogether improve, but we have no time to follow them to the qualmy rooms of the sweatshops , - the pictures there are too dreary, and we are only in search of the picturesque.

What a chance to study types! One occasional visit would soon make us acquainted with the candle women, the instalment peddler, the Thora teacher, the Schatchen, and the Chasen (i. e. prayer leader), five types found nowhere on American ground save in the Ghetto. We would learn to differentiate between the orthodox Jews who still keep up the habit of owning three special sets of clothes, one for holidays, one for half holidays, and one for every day life, and the young bucks of Jewtown in their semi-fashionable dress who do not even hesitate to dive into a Gentile restaurant.

How impressive the old men look. Whole chapters of the Bible seem to be personified in them. They smile sadly, absent-mindedly into their long, white beards, as they sit on the curbstones, their lean hands folded across their knees. Frugality is their life's philosophy. They are attired in cast-off garments, picked up God knows where. Their favorite head covering seems to be the crowns of old felt hats, out of which they have made skull caps by cutting off the brims.

The women also are interesting. What anatomical peculiarities and features of ethnological interest. The shriveled up old ones are hideous in their emaciation and disheveled hair, and resemble witches. Life is too strenuous in Jewtown to preserve the bloom of youth. Among the younger ones there are some who are very beautiful beneath their coating of filth, with the clove skin and large, soft, black eyes. They give themselves a coquettish appearance. With their colored petticoats, and shawls covering their shoulders, with their black hair plaited in thick tresses or looped up behind the ears, some have the grand air of Oriental queens, fallen to the very depths of penury. And the children - there is always a whole flock of them on the move. They overflow the streets and make a crowd wherever there is an empty spot. Their tatters beggar all description. Here a baby crawls about, dressed in an old chintz curtain, there a boy has a man's dress coat, from which the tails have been torn, flapping against his calves. And how dirty they are, one might mistake them for Florentine bronzes, those charming little figures of the Renaissance period.

Jewtown is a world in itself, and a world unknown to most of us. I believe it would be a grateful task to explore it. Very little has been done until now.

True enough, Jewtown has its own literature. The names of Peretz and Gordin are on every tongue. Sheikevitch was the Alexander Dumas of the Ghetto and wrote more than two hundred volumes. There is no lack of other talented writers. I only mention Sholem Aleichem, Seiffert, Biabeck, and the poets Rosenfeld, Reisen, Winchevsky. But they write in Hebrew and Yiddish, and tell us but little of their own people. People who live in squalor do not wish to be reminded of it. For realistic glimpses of Jewtown we have to turn to the writings of Bernstein and Abraham Cahan, who have grown up in the milieu of the Tenth Ward. They have contributed a few charming episodes to our literature, but until now nothing of importance or of lasting value.

The artists, with the exception of a few illustrators, have run shy of these subjects, and the East-side art leagues, with localism as their aim, consist of too young an element who have shown much more than enthusiasm.

Perhaps the photographer will be the first to conquer their domain. He will any way be able to give us instantaneous fragments of life, but if rendered in their most concise aspects, they may after all reflect a good deal of the true character of the children of the ghetto, who despite their lifelong hunt for wealth can boat of qualities which, with their warm breath of sympathy and spasms of joy, appeal to the recognition of every observer.

* * *

TO FRIENDSHIP

Hail thou, Friendship!
Earliest red of morning
Of my highest longing!
Endless often
Seemed the path, the night, to me;
And all life
Hateful, without aim!
Now will I live doubly
That in thine eyes have beheld
Victory and dawn,
Thou dearest Goddess!
-Friedrich Nietzsche.

* * *

INTERNATIONAL NOTES

GUSTAVE HERVE, the famous anti-militarist and editor of La Guerre Sociale, is now serving a four-year sentence at Clarevout, the prison wherein were, at one time, incarcerated Peter Kropotkin and Jean Grave.

In taking leave from his comrades, Herve wrote: "Though not as speedily as our impatience would have, we are nevertheless marching onward. This certainty should serve as a great impetus to all those who have retained their faith in, and enthusiasm for, a brighter future. I beg of my friends and comrades not to fret on my account. I feel strong enough to face, like Blanqui, thirty-two years' imprisonment, if need be. Nor would that for one moment even cause me to look upon life from its unpleasant side, nor rob me of my unbounded faith in our ideal. I wish Briand as much peace of mind at the moment of his zenith as I shall enjoy in my cell. With a serene conscience prison life even is endurable."

* * *

L'Ere Nouvelle which has been suspended for some time, is again being published by our indefatigable comrade, E. Armand. The issue just received contains, among other interesting contributions, translations from Mother Earth articles by Bolton Hall, James F. Morton, Victor Robinson, and Sadakichi Hartmann.

Address: L'Ere Nouvelle, 29, rue de Recouvrance, Orleans, France.

* * *

The big and little tyrants of the Latin republics believe with the trustocrats of Europe and America that brutal methods can suppress the increasing power of the workers' awakened consciousness. How stupid this belief is has recently been demonstrated in Argentine. As reported in Mother Earth, several hundred thousand workers were arrested and many more deported ; a number of labor organizations were dissolved, and the Anarchist and Socialist publications suppressed. Yet the zeal and devotion of our Argentine comrades have remained undaunted. An anti-Anarchist law has been passed, with the object of exterminating by severe punishment the "ringleaders." By the provisions of the new statue, the residence of Anarchists in the republic is rigorously interdicted. Representatives of navigation companies, captains, or agents who knowingly engage in the bringing of Anarchists to this country will be liable to heavy fine or imprisonment. Capital punishment is provided for those who are responsible for any Anarchistic movement resulting in death.

* * *

Since the overthrow of absolutism in Turkey, the labor movement has been growing tremendously. The weekly paper Ichtisch, which leans strongly toward revolutionary Socialism, contains several instructive articles about the condition of workers in factory and field ; also biographies of Anarchists and Socialists : Bakunin, Proudhon, Blanqui, Lassalle, Fourile, and others.

* * *

The annual convention of the Anarchists of Germany has just closed. Twenty-three cities were represented by forty-five delegates.

The report of the committee on written and oral propaganda called forth considerable discussion, and resulted in the very commendable decision to avoid as much as possible all personal disputes in the press.

The congress further recommended that, in case of a national general strike - which the Social Democrats intent proclaiming as a demand for equal suffrage - the Anarchists should join as a matter of solidarity, though repudiating the political action as a useless and injurious waste of energy.

The congress also recommends to Anarchists at large to actively participate in the next International Anarchist Congress, to take place in 1911.

The Anarchist movement of Germany now publishes the following four organs : Der freie Arbeiter, Der Anarchist, Der Weckruf, and Der Socialist..

* * *

We recommend to the Yiddish-reading comrades the new monthly, Freie Gesellschaft, published at New York. The three numbers which have so far been issued contain good articles of theoretic and literary interest. Address: 30 Canal Street, New York. Price $1.00 per year.

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